This is a list of things you’re allowed to do that you thought you couldn’t, or didn’t even know you could.
I haven’t tried everything on this list, mainly due to cost. But you’d be surprised how cheap most of the things on this list are (especially the free ones).
**Note that you can replace “hire” or “buy” with “barter for” or “find a DIY guide to” nearly everywhere below.**E.g. you can clean the bathroom in exchange for your housemate doing a couple hours research for you.
Learning and decision making
- Hire a researcher or expert consultant
- I hired a researcher (Elizabeth Van Nostrand, whom you can and should hire too) to help write this very post, which is largely about how to hire people to do things!
- They can:
* Help validate whether a crazy idea is possible
* Do epistemic spot checks of your work
* Map the landscape of opinions on a topic
* Write literature surveys
* Find people worth talking to about a potential topic and writing briefs about them
* Opposition or market research
* Find options for big purchases like houses or insurance
* Compile datasets
* Find un-Googleable things - To find one:
* Look for books or scholarly articles on the topic, and email the author
* Graduate students are especially good, and often know more than the “experts”
* If you find someone genuinely interested in what you’re working on, you might be able to collaborate and not pay
* Look for interested individuals in the long tail of blogs
* E.g. by Google searching with"site: medium.com"and finding the authors
* Use a matchmaking service (see Appendix)
* Search through professional organizations directories (e.g. Bar Association, American Academy of Pediatrics)
* Google the topic +
* “blog”
* “podcast”
* “expert witness”
* “book”
* “consultant”
* “reddit” - What do I pay them?
* Some post their prices online
* If you’re hiring a grad student you can pay them at or above their school’s graduate student stipend, which you can Google.
* Make sure they get something out of the project (and other tips)
- Ask obvious questions
- Ask questions online
- You know those answers you enjoy reading on Stack Exchange, Reddit, Quora, etc.? Someone had to ask those questions. It can be you.
- If you’re embarrassed by the question, it’s easy to be anonymous
- Run surveys
- Twitter
* Or ask someone with a larger following to do it - Google Surveys
- Amazon Mechanical Turk
- Twitter
- Buy advertisements, especially in legacy media
- Run genuine randomized control trials on yourself
- Buy research or data
- Hire someone to pentest/doxx you
- Or put out a bounty for it, like Gwern used to
- Hire a graphic designer to turn your appalling sketches into beautiful diagrams or slides
- Host small gatherings or conferences on topics you care about
- These are much easier to set up than you’d think, especially in the age of Zoom
- Hire a tutor
- Language tutors are surprisingly cheap and better than any app
- Wyzant and many other sites exist for general tutoring
- For niche tutoring you can try general freelance sites like Fiverr or Upwork
- Services like Sharpest Minds exist for professional training
- Dissect a cadaver (even as a non-medical student)
- Pick a spot on the map that simply seems strange and just go there. (HT Michael Nielsen)
- Hire someone just as an excuse to make yourself complete a project
- Sure you could proofread your own document. But if you hire a proofreader, you have to actually deliver them something at some point.
Interpersonal
- Say “I don’t know” or “I don’t have an opinion” when you don’t
- Not tell white lies
- You can be nice and tell the truth at the same time.
- Especially to kids when they annoy you.
- Don’t drink (alcohol), even when you’re expected to
- Buy goods/services from your friends
- It’s not weird unless you make it weird
- Everyone knows some starving artists and needs to buy holiday gifts
- Doesn’t apply to every service obviously: don’t take out loans from your friends
- Travel to friends just to visit them
- Move close to friends
- Live in multiple places with multiple people
- Rent spare rooms or couches part-time in multiple homes
- Arrange your own timeshare system with friends
* E.g. a group of nine friends can rent three three-bedroom apartments in three cities
* This also gives you flexibility over which jurisdiction you’re taxed in
- Be a nomad
- Ask your acquaintances, “Hey, I want to leave my house more, are there any cool events you’re going to soon?” (HT Sasha Chapin)
- Actively try to make yourself a better conversation partner
- Via Sasha Chapin
- Via Chana Messinger
- Via Adam Mastroianni
- Start a blog or substack so you can say “I’m a writer” without lying. Then start conversations with strangers by saying “Hi, I’m a writer doing a piece about <location/circumstance you’re in>. Can I ask you a few questions?”
- This is especially handy when traveling or at a restaurant.
- Romance
- Ask people out on dates
- Ask your friends to set you up
- Hire a matchmaker
- Buy premium versions of dating apps
- Get couples therapy
- Give to charity
- You can, to the best of our knowledge, save someone’s (statistical) life with not that much money. This is a big deal.
Support and accountability
- Hire a coach
- For your professional area
* An Atul Gawande article on the subject
* On clicker training - Personal trainer
- Nutritionist
- Meditation guide
- For your professional area
- Visit a physical therapist
- Buy task-specific devices that prevent multitasking
- Kindle
- Freewrite Traveller
- Dedicated music players
- Dedicated notebooks for specific purposes (day planner, exercise log, etc.)
- Engage a human productivity monitor
- I know two people who have hired people to sit next to them or frequently contact them to keep them on-task
- Examples: focusmate.com and coding-pal.com
Making the most of your resources
- First, figure out how much your time is really worth to you, and then act/spend accordingly
- Modify your stuff
- Tape over annoying LED lights
- Remove logos (example)
- Write in books
- Rip off tags
- Rotate your monitor to portrait
- Repair your stuff, or get it repaired
- Shoes
- Clothes
- Luggage and outdoor gear
- Furniture
- Car
* You can buy at-home car care
- Grocery delivery
- Cleaning services
- Can be regular or just when you need a big spring clean
- Don’t forget carpet cleaning, vent cleaning, and air filter replacement
- Laundry service
- Nannies over daycare
- Write on a post-it note affixed to a greeting card rather than on the greeting card itself, so the recipient can throw away the post-it and reuse your card
- Employ similar logic for any disposable/consumable item
- Ask for free upgrades or coupons
- At checkout you can just ask “Do you have any coupons I can apply to this?”
- Treat fines like payments
- E.g. park illegally and let yourself think of the (expected value of the) fine as a parking fee
- Obviously don’t break rules that matter like blocking a fire exit
- Contest unjust fines
- DoNotPay offers lots of services like this, like unsubscribing you from services or sending faxes digitally
- Don’t pay, or renegotiate, bills
- Let the credit cards on recurring bills expire
- Call/email executives at company to complain about things
- E.g. using RocketReach
- Telemedicine
- Surgery for appearance or comfort
- At-home vet care
- Enroll yourself (or your pet) in a clinical trial or research study
- Generate your own audiobooks
- Generate your own ebooks
- Get verbal things written down
- Personal assistant services (or a real PA if you can afford it)
- Magic, TaskRabbit, Fancy Hands, and similar services can approximate many of these. There are also more serious services like Double.
- Manage email
- Helping you move
- Getting visas and arranging travel
- Stand in line for you
- Errands
- Filing paperwork
- Hire a personal stylist
- And if you grew up in a thrifty family, like me:
- Paying for parking in convenient location
- Hotels where you can sleep comfortably
- Non-public transportation, especially when traveling
- Buying comfortable mattress, shoes, etc.
- Buying clothes for appearance or comfort instead of just the lowest price
- Bottled water when you’re thirsty
* And in general fulfilling any bodily need for < $5 (restrooms, buying a hat when you forgot yours, etc.) - Buy your way out of advertising on e.g. Spotify or YouTube
- Actually turn the heat/AC on
* And in general, being willing to spend a few minutes to fix small annoyances
* You could even get someone to observe you to help figure this out
* Seriously, just put 3-IN-ONE oil on that squeaky hinge already
Professional
- Ignore what’s on the jobs page and directly pitch someone at a company on hiring you
- The jobs page is always out-of-date anyway
- Figure out what their needs are before you make your pitch
- Negotiate for better terms in your job offer
- Easier than asking for a raise - you have more leverage
- You can ask for a signing bonus equal to the cost of exercising all your options, which shows commitment to the company
- Propose a longer vesting schedule to demonstrate commitment
- Ask for a raise
- Ask to waive admission or graduation requirements
- Drop out/quit your job
- Or go on leave from your job/school until they kick you out. They often won’t.
- Live off your savings while trying something new
- If you can’t live off your savings, get a grant
- Emergent Ventures
- ACX Grants
- Kickstarter
- These days there are always new microgrant programs starting, here’s one list
- Work for yourself
- Coaching, contracting, etc.
- Cold contact people
- Yes, even famous people. Or anyone who wrote something you like. Just make sure you have something to say or a good question.
- Write forwardable emails
- Follow up many times
- You won’t make people mad if you’re polite.
- Approach a person or group you admire and ask whether they want to cofound something with you
- “Here’s my story, my goal is to build a company/nonprofit/whatever in this space, maybe I can help you with X role.”
- Propose that a person, group, or company contract-to-hire you
- Even if you want a cofounder role, this can be done well
- Learn how professionals email by reading leaked emails.
- Use contract-to-hire
- Even for CEO-level roles, this can be done well
- As mentioned above, buy research or data, e.g. for compensation
- Market-test a mere idea by (1) setting up a landing page with an interest form and (2) buying a cheap social media ad campaign. (HT @daytimeskye)
- Merge with your competitors, a la PayPal
- Work in public
- Or mostly in public, a la SpaceX who livestreams everything
- Sell to unusual markets
- ZetrOZ was building a medical device, but started by selling to olympic horse teams, then olympic human athletes
- Some biotech companies start in pets
- Charge more
- Write interviews with yourself and send them to journalists (HT Tom Kalil)
- Fly to people for in-person meetings/visits to demonstrate seriousness
- In general, just ask for things, even if you’ve never heard someone ask for them
- It’s okay if the things are crazy. You can always mollify afterward by saying “I know that’s a crazy thing to ask for, but I have a rule that I always ask.”
- Dwarkesh Patel’s list of “barbell strategies”
- Katja Grace’s How to trade money and time
- Sam Bowman’s Things I Recommend You Buy and Use
- Rob Wiblin channeling Sam
- Arden Koehler channeling Rob
- Arden Koehler channeling herself
- Sam Bowman channeling himself
- Estimated hourly costs of buying free time (see comments)
Thanks toGwern,Stephen Malina,Alexey Guzey,Elliot Jin,iandanforth,Joshua M. Clulow,Kay,zoba,ryandrake, a guy I can’t name who offers “personal assistant concierge services for high-net-worth families,” and Elizabeth Van Nostrandfor some of the ideas above.
Appendix: Sources of experts
| Name | Type | Comments | Target Audience | URL | | --------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Expertise Finder | Academics to comment on many subjects | Journalists | link | | | Women’s Media Center SheSource | Women only, focuses on current events and politics | Journalists | link | | | National Association of Personal Financial Advisors | Financial only | Seems like a low bar to entry | Journalists | link | | ProfNet | Wide range of experts | Owned by PR firm, presumably works for experts more than you | Journalists | link | | Coursera Expert Network | Academics from top schools only | Presumably biased towards people who have made Coursera courses | Journalists | link | | ExpertFile | Curated experts from universities, institutions, think tanks, associations, companies and other sources | Journalists | link | | | GURU | Aimed mostly at professional expertise (Sales, Marketing, Eng, etc.) | Businesses | link | | | Amber Biology | Biologists only | Science projects? | link | | | Help a Reporter Out (HARO) | Requires affiliation with a highly ranked website | Journalists | link | | | Self Improvement Experts Directory | Individuals | link | | | | JurisPro | Expert witnesses | Lawyers | link | | | ForensisGroup | Expert witnesses | Lawyers | link | | | Expert Institute | Expert witnesses | Lawyers | link | |
Appendix: Sources of research and data
- Top choices:
- Inside View
- US Census Data
- SBA’s Office of Entrepreneurship Education Resources
- Pew Research Center
- Statista
- marketresearch.com
- Plunkett Research
- The Market Intelligence Co.
- Jinfo
- IDC
- Gartner
- Pitchbook
- Crunchbase
- Option Impact salary information
- The Venture Capital Executive Compensation Survey